COLOR PROBLEMS
COLOR PROBLEMS
CHAPTER I
COLOR—BLINDNESS
THE relation of color to light is much the same as that of music to sound. Color has its many hues, its long scales of tints and shades, its true and its false chords. Mere sound gives us but little pleasure; when developed, however, into its highest form, music, we are thrilled, as by the song of a bird, a favorite ballad, or a Beethoven Symphony. So in light, our enjoyment culminates at the glories of color in a flower or a sunset, at the shadows that play over the hills, or at the varied hues of a salt marsh. Hence we may aptly term color the music of light; and when we think of the wonderful ways in which it has been used and combined by painters and designers for hundreds of years, it must seem strange to us that its harmonies have not been as thoroughly studied and classified as those of sound.
Furthermore, color has come to be so closely connected with all the occupations and enjoyments of mankind that it is hard for us to realize that many persons are wholly or partially blind to its beauties. It is well known that there are some individuals with such perfect organs of hearing that they are able to distinguish the slightest sounds, who yet are so utterly unable to distinguish between two tones or between the harmonies and discords of music that they are said to have “no ear.” So there are those whose eyes are as well formed for seeing all and distant objects, but who are unable to see color as it is seen by people with normal eyes. Such individuals may be said to have “no eye” for color, and are scientifically termed “color-blind.”
This fact is not so well known; and, in view of it, any one interested in color will understand the wisdom of beginning a study of color with some knowledge of color-blindness, and, if possible, with having his eyes examined by an expert. Such an examination is a short and simple matter. Dr. William Thomson of Philadelphia has devised what he calls a “color stick,” on which colored wools are so hung and numbered that it is not even necessary to be an expert to use it, and with the help of which color-blindness can easily be detected. It has been used with great success over some fifty thousand miles of railroad. From the same hand has lately come a newer and simpler form of the same invention.
Color-blindness is seldom a total want of the power to see colors, but is rather a want of the true normal perception of colors, and it is more common than is generally supposed. The most common form of the defect, which has been called by some “red-blindness,” is that of not seeing red, but of confusing it with green, as, for instance, being unable to see any difference between the red flower of a geranium and the green of its foliage; between green grass and red autumn leaves. A color-blind person will sort variously colored wools in the strangest way, putting the reds among the greens, and mixing the blues and the violets together.
Plate I shows part of the result of an examination of a color-blind man by Doctor Thomson. The patient was given one hundred and fifty different-colored wools to sort in little heaps according as he saw them to be red, blue, green, etc.; he seemed to hesitate over but few of them. These he put by themselves in a heap called neutral. To a normal eye the result is almost incomprehensible, as he mixed green with all the other colors and made other as strange combinations. Di-chromatic vision has been suggested as a fitting term for such defective color perception, as colors to red-blind persons amount to but two, viz., yellow and blue, with a long range of neutral grays between.
There are other forms of color-blindness which are less common. Some persons seem to see but red and blue, classing yellow and green with red. A less common defect is that of not seeing violet, while there are a few cases on record where all sensation of color is wanting, everything appearing in differing degrees of gray. One such instance coming under the notice of the writer occurred temporarily from over-strained nerves in a person gifted with an abnormally fine color-sense. No doubt some people are born color-blind, but the defect is also brought on by disease, by the excessive use of tobacco, alcohol, and other stimulants, and may, or may not, prove permanent. According to Abney, the disease begins in the centre of the eye, so that those suffering from its early stages can match colored wools correctly, but when given instead small colored pellets to match make many mistakes, because a pellet may happen to be directly before the small blind spot that is insensible to its color, while the larger mass of wool extends before the whole retina. Doctor Charcot and his school in Paris have made many examinations into visual disturbances, and through these examinations much of the peculiar coloring and mannerism of some of the modern painters of the so-called impressionist, tachist, mosaist, gray-in-gray, violet colorist, archaic, vibraist, and color orgiast schools has been explained. The artists tell the truth when they say that nature looks to them as they paint it, but they are suffering from hysteria or from other nervous derangements by which their sight is affected.
For a long time railroad engineers would not believe that examinations for color-blindness were necessary, but when shown the results of such an examination the surprise of those with normal eyes was intense. They realized what it would be to travel on a train in charge of an engineer who did not know when the red danger signal had been put in place of the usual green one. In other spheres of life correct knowledge of color is not so vitally necessary, yet to artisans of many kinds—decorators, florists, manufacturers, dressmakers, milliners, etc.—it is both useful and important.
As to the extent of color-blindness, it has been estimated that in England about one person in eighteen is more or less afflicted with it. In 1873 and 1875 Dr. Farre examined in France one thousand and fifty officials of various grades, and found among them ninety-eight color-blind, or nine and thirty-five hundredths per cent. In 1876 Professor Holmgren examined in Sweden two hundred and sixty-five persons on the Upsala Gefle line, with the result that thirteen were found to be color-blind. Seebach found five young persons out of forty-one in a gymnasium who were color-blind. None of them had been at all conscious of the defect.
Among the visitors to the International Health Association in London, in 1884, Mr. F. Galton found a large number of men and a small number of women